Foreign Knowledge
by Sehanine
Summary: Harry is sent to Vonderland. Could this be where he discovers the power the Dark Lord knows not?


AN: Written for round 12 of the QLFC.

Team: Pride of Portree

Position: Keeper

Crossover Catagory: Cartoon

* * *

Dear Mr. Potter,

It is with deepest regret that I write to inform you that you will not be attending Hogwarts this coming year. The Headmaster believes it is in your best interests to transfer to a little-known school in Europe, called Vonderland.

I understand that this may come as a shock to you, but I must ask you to not let anyone else know where you are going, not even Mr. Weasley or Miss Granger. It is imperative that we keep your location secret from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

I hope you are not overly upset by this news and I look forward to seeing you again in the future. You have been a pleasure to teach.

Yours Sincerely,

Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress.

Harry stared down at the letter, torn between anger and sadness. Tears pooled in his eyes as he considered the very real possibility that he may never return to Hogwarts at all. It had only been a month since he had lost his godfather in the Department of Mysteries and now he was faced with the loss of his best friends and his home all at once.

Trying to distract himself from his thoughts he looked over the equipment list. No school uniform was listed, just basic magical equipment. Harry already had everything he needed from his last year at Hogwarts. There was, however, one item that he did not recognise.

"What the hell is a scoot zoomer?"

Having successfully portkeyed to the magical British Embassy in Germany, Harry was quickly whisked away in a car to a series of tall, imposing buildings. It looked more like an industrial estate than a school, Harry thought. He was quickly surprised when he took a few steps forward and saw the buildings melt away to reveal a castle not entirely unlike Hogwarts.

A small, ginger-furred cat was standing beneath the portcullis, staring straight at Harry. More accurately, it was staring at his scar. Unsure how to react to this, Harry hesitantly waved to the cat, figuring it would be safer to be polite, just in case.

Fortunately, his suspicions were correct. The cat suddenly transformed into a large woman, who smiled down at Harry like he was the best thing she'd ever seen.

"Good morning, Harry," she said. "Welcome to Vonderland!"

"Good morning, Ma'am," Harry replied, wondering briefly if there was some kind of requirement that all schools have a cat animagus on staff.

"My name is Miss Crystalgazer," the woman said. "I am the headmistress here at Vonderland. Come now, I will show you to your room."

Harry followed Miss Crystalgazer through the castle, relieved to see that aside from a talking portcullis there was nothing too different from Hogwarts. The paintings were moving and interacting with people, a ghost floated through a wall, scaring some children who were evidently in their first year and children were stopping to gawp at Harry's forehead. All-in-all it felt enough like Hogwarts to make Harry feel incredibly homesick.

Miss Crystalgazer dropped Harry off at his room, assuring him that his roommates would already be there and were expecting him. He pushed open the door to reveal two teenage boys lying on their beds who immediately stopped their conversation and turned to stare at him.

"Er, hi," Harry said, running a hand through his hair self-consciously.

"Hey," a red-haired boy replied, looking up and smiling. "You must be our new roommate. I'm Vern." He extended a hand towards Harry, who shook it gratefully. He had been worried that he could be living with completely awful people, but Vern seemed okay.

Vern threw something across the room at the other boy, who appeared to be having a conversation with the inside of his backpack. He quickly closed the flap and looked up at Harry.

"Hi, I'm Gus. Nice scar," the boy said, pointing at Harry's head. Harry quickly smoothed his fringe down again, scowling when it immediately parted to reveal the scar again.

"Nice ears," Harry shot back, gesturing to Gus' unusually pointy ears.

Gus and Vern looked at each other for a moment, then burst into fits of laughter.

"You're alright," Gus said, nodding his head to punctuate his decision. Harry tried to smile, but suspected he just made himself look like an idiot.

A few days after arriving at Vonderland, Harry entered his room to find Vern playing with something that looked rather like a Muggle video game system.

"How are you making that work?" Harry asked him, puzzled.

"I've got it plugged into a powerful battery," Vern replied, not once taking his eyes off the screen.

"But how is it even working in the first place when electronics don't mix well with a magical environment?" Harry persevered.

"Oh, they mix fine," Vern said, finally pausing the game to look at Harry. "We learnt in History, though, that the British Ministry tell wizards they can't use magic around that stuff. I thought that was just a joke, but I guess it was true."

Harry felt confused. It made no sense to him that the Ministry would do that. More importantly, why would people like Dumbledore go along with it? Thinking about it, though, it made sense that Muggle and magical things could coexist just fine. The Weasley's had a telephone, after all, even if it only lasted a few weeks before Mr Weasley dismantled it.

Also, some wizarding houses like Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place were right in the middle of Muggle neighbourhoods. Surely if magic messed up electronics then the neighbours would have noticed. Harry had spent a lot of time staring out of the windows of that house, observing the electronically-lit houses around the square and noticing the flicker from their television sets. Nothing ever seemed to be affected by the high concentration of magic in the area.

"Why would they do that?" Harry asked, still confused.

"Apparently they like to keep wizards separate from the rest of the world." Vern replied, eyes drifting back to his game as he picked up the controller once more.

That made sense. After all, that's how Voldemort got so much support from the pure-bloods; it was because most traditional wizards wanted to stay away from Muggles, or rather to make the Muggles stay away from them. What better way to accomplish this than by making the magical community believe that integration would be physically very difficult, if not impossible.

Harry looked at the games console a bit closer, never having been this close to one before. Dudley had never let Harry into the same room as his precious PlayStation. Perhaps, Vern would even let Harry have a go…

"Hey!" Harry shouted, causing Vern to drop the controller in shock. "This isn't even wired up to that battery. It looks like there's just electricity running through the air!" He pointed down at the twin streams of glowing energy flowing between the battery and the console, one red and one green.

"That's not electricity, Harry," Vern said, rolling his eyes a little at the perceived stupidity of the question. "It's magic."

Harry sat down and tried to organise his thoughts. He didn't want to believe that everyone had been lying to him about this, but faced with the reality he couldn't really ignore it. Muggle electronics were clearly not adversely affected by magic.

Suddenly, Harry realised why Dumbledore had wanted him at Vonderland. It had nothing to do with its top secret location; Voldemort could torture that out of someone if he cared to. No, it was because of that damn prophecy. Harry had to find a 'power the Dark Lord knows not'.

How had he never seen it before? Voldemort was well versed in all things magical but despite his childhood he had never paid any attention to the Muggle world. This super power Harry had was not some kind of obscure magic, but simple technology.

"Hey, Vern? Can you teach me how to do that?"

Harry's next few months were spent learning to become a technomage. First, he began by fixing broken bits of gadgets he found lying around the school and eventually moved on to placing basic enchantments on things. By the time Harry was due to return to England at Christmas, he had become quite proficient at technomagic.

Almost the moment Harry arrived back in England he was surrounded by Death Eaters. One snatched his wand before he had a chance to react, and two more held him in place, turning him to face the figure in the centre of the group.

"We meet again, Harry," Voldemort said. Harry looked down at his feet, embarrassed to have been caught so easily.

"Release him, but be sure he does not escape," Voldemort ordered the Death Eaters. They let go of Harry's arms and stepped back, wands pointed at his chest.

"Today, Potter, I have you at my mercy," Voldemort announced, more to his audience than to Harry. "Today, I will kill you."

Harry lifted the hand, still clutching the portkey he had used to return to England. He pointed the cheap-looking Muggle camera at Voldemort and quickly pressed the button. A green light flew out of the camera towards Voldemort. Unfamiliar with the usual way a camera operated, Voldemort made no attempt to dodge the killing curse that Harry had enchanted the camera to release upon pressing the button.

Finally, easily, Voldemort had been defeated. His crumpled body lay on the street as his followers once more abandoned him, worried for their freedom and perhaps that Harry may have had more insidious devices hidden on his person. Harry smiled and cast a quick lumos charm, knowing someone would quickly be along to arrest him for using magic. Hopefully, the body of the dead Dark Lord would be considered a good enough reason for doing so.


End file.
